Are you where you are supposed to be?

Whew, I have finally gotten past being overwhelmed. As suggested by one of my loyal readers, when feeling overwhelmed, one should just start another project. Isn't she a darling......so I did. but first...

Quilts are finished, mailed and received. I love the last one we did. It is a very old pattern, Churn Dashput together without using bordering strips.

I was surprised. It came out as a very feminine soft pattern. . All together, considering I had not done anything in the quilt world for years, they turned out fairly well. I just hope they get used. The more they are used the softer they become, and they are not heirloom quality.

Mother's Day luncheon went well. No one died of food poisoning. No one left in tears or called me back in tears, which has happened before. Families are sooooo strange, don't you think? There were all ages here from 8 to 87. I did not have to make our favorite mac and cheese, brownies with thick chocolate icing and deviled eggs, they were all provided. How wonderful.

I took the spinning class. I am so glad I did. If after 8 hours of work, all that I would have is a ball of yarn, that then has to be worked on some more, then that is not for me. When would I have time to start other projects? Lesson learned there. Sorry ames, unless you spin it, no family handspun yarn for handknit socks for you. I am so glad that I only invested about $20 in this instead of $400. (ames: WOE. Maybe you should look into dyeing! :D)

The paring down of the knit groups has gone well. Since some of the same people were in some of the same groups, by only going to some of them I still see some of them,sometimes. (That is Some sentence there, boy!)

I do not believe in coincidences. As I was told last night, in life you are never where you are not supposed to be. I have been drawn to the knit shop in our little town. I like the owner, friendly but not pushy. I like the staff, helpful but not smothering.

Last night there was a knit-in at the shop. It was the first time since I have been going there that I actually got to talk to the owner. Great glory be! We are from the same town, good ole podunk Macon, we went to the same elementary school and high schools, and attended the same church.

When I was growing up, children could ride their bicycles every where in their neighborhood, but not across Napier Blvd. As it happened she lived in the "no ride zone", so I never could have visited her. Plus she is about 10 years younger than I am, but isn't that weird? She was friends with my friends' younger brothers and sisters.

She, too, beat feet out of there as fast she could, faster than I did. She skipped her senior year and went straight into nursing school. We discussed how sad our school system was and how it was strange to try to tell your high school experiences because they were so different than the normal schools. Lots of fun. Who would have thunk it?

The knitted rug is about 2/3rds finished. One more ball of yarn ought to do it. I like the pattern and the yarn. The color changes help hide the mistakes. So smart.

The sweater has not been started. The 2 sock project languishes in the bottom of the to-finish basket.

More to come later. I have pictures of the quilt,the Newborns in Need meeting, and a trip to Daniel Island. I just have to figure out how to get them from camera to blog....oh bother.

Overwhelmed

I am completely and totally overwhelmed. I have done it to myself and I cannot blame anyone els...OK, I can blame Erwin, but what else is new.
Again I have started way too many projects at one time and I cannot seem to settle down to just one.

1) I still have one more quilt to finish and mail. I should get the backing on it today. Then all that is left is the quilting, which I will do by machine, and the binding, which will also be done by machine. Then, off to FedEx whoo hoo!

2) I have started knitting a small rug for my laundry room. I know, one more project, but AC Moores had the yarn on sale for $.99 a skein. I love Peaches and Cream Yarn, and a sale...an irresistible mix. The pattern is very simple and I am using it as my travel project.

3) I bought oodles of lovely pink yarn sort of rose colored for a sweater that a friend said was easy and that I should try.....I might hate her by the time this is over, ha.

4) I am still working on my two socks on one needle project. Hint: No matter how messed up it gets DO NOT take them off the needle and then put them back on...no,no,no. I have a space relationship problem anyway, and this just about took me to my crazy place. I think I have salvaged this, but I am not sure. I hope to finish this and I don't think I will try it again. With all the moving and fiddling and counting I could have finished one sock by now, but no, I have two socks unfinished.

5) Mother's Day is on its way. I have invited the family here in Chas. to our house for lunch...what was I thinking? I will have it catered by Sam's. They have good chicken salad, croissants and cake. So all I have to do is a salad and iced tea.
I still have to clean house somewhat and just get it together. Oh bother!

6) I have been to Wed knitting, Thurs knitting, Monday and Sunday knitting. In other words, I could be in a knitting group every day of the week. I went to these to eliminate the ones I did not want to join.

Decisions have been made!

I love the James Island group that meets once a week. I cannot go every week due to the distance from here, so I will go twice a month. The Sunday group is just too much, so that will have to be back to one or twice a month. The Summerville group only meets once a month, so that one I can keep.

The West Ashley group is changing to a more more pro-active group...in other words they want to do activities, etc. Don't know if I want to do that. So that one is on hold for a while. Not that I am anti-charity, I am just not in town on a regular basis, so I'm not very dependable.

Folk Art Fri is on hiatus til Sept. The redwork group is also nonexistent till Sept.

So the way it looks now is Monday two times a month, Summerville once a month and Sunday when it suits me. Whew, that was a soul searching exercise.

7.)I went to Spinning class last night. What fun! I can use my drop spindle now. I just need to practice. I want to go to a few auctions to see if I can find a small
wheel that is not too expensive. Yeah, me and 500 others want that.

8.) Clean Clean Clean. I have company coming in June.YEA!!!!! But as of this moment, only one extra bed and there are two coming.
Solution? I went to World Market and bought a chair that makes a twin bed. Hope that link works, it is very long. Go to World market and furniture and twin sleeper chair if you are really interested. I am wondering if I could use this in my camper? Small room, so when it is not a bed it is a chair. Cool. I will have my quilt done by then (YES I will, so hush) so the table will go back against the wall - instant walking space, plus a place to put the suitcase or bag or whatever. Yarn books, magazine, quilt books...so bedtime reading. I see an argument looming over who gets to sleep in a chair, so funny.

Catch me if you can

I cannot believe it has been this long since I wrote in this blog. Where has the time gone? We got back from Florida and started the unpacking again. This time it was emptying the boxes we had stashed just to get them out of the way. My craft room was one project. The Man bought me a large double door cabinet to put all my crafty things in...Guess who didn't know how much crafty stuff I had squirreled away. Any way some of it went in the closet on shelves, some in the new cabinet, some to Goodwill and some to be recycled with other crafters.

We live only about 8 miles from a cute small town with lots of boutiques and craft shopes, one of a kind jewelry, etc. I knew there was a wonderful quilt shop there but I didn't know about the rest. I went to the quilt shop and found out about a Redwork embroidery class that I could join. I thought this would be a great way to meet people. The patterns are cute but the class is expensive. Being the frugal kid I am, I decided to only take some of the classes since they give away free patterns, use the bought and the free patterns and make a small quilt not the double bed sized one they show.


These blocks are about 12 " square. Think red sashing and red and white border... cute,huh.

Anyway I found out from them about a new knit shop that had opend so I wandered over there. Cute shop, new still getting yarn in. But I found out from her about this thing on the internet called http://www.meetups.com/ Have you heard about it?

From meet ups, I found out about a knitting group that meets once a month at the library. Went to that and was told about another one that meets twice a month in a coffee shop, went to that.

The one in the library is very small, but friendly. The one in the coffee shop is going to outgrow its meeting place soon.

So I had to have portable, mindless knitting for that...Enter the Ballband dishcloth.


I have done this so many times I don't have to pay too much attention to it.

Somehow I read or heard that a scrapbooking store here was having a midnight rop party . Of course I had to go to that..found out I am too old for the midnight thing, I was home by 10 PM, but I did get a cute card done for my nephew. The pictures are awful, but the card is cute.
Most of these only meet once a month. I will figure out which ones I like then drop the rest. Or they will drop me when we travel to Indiana this summer.
I am still very interested in genealogy. What amazes me is that I am finding out about family I never knew existed. I think had I known there were 'Patriots" in my fmaily that fought for Francis Marion, in the Rev war I would have been more interested in history.
I have gathered tons of information and have no idea what to do with it....but it is fun.